According to a report in the Liverpool Echo, Ingham responded to questions regarding his previously stated views on the disaster by saying: “What have I to apologise for?”

The Echo reports that Ingham, now 80, had written a letter to Liverpool fan Graham Skinner (whose friend Eric Hughes died in the disaster) in 1996, which was this week passed to the Hillsborough Family Support Group.

In it Ingham reportedly wrote: “I have, however, one suggestion to make: for its own good, Liverpool – with the Heysel disaster in the background – should shut up about Hillsborough.

“Nothing can now bring back those who died – innocent people who, by virtue of being in the ground early, had their lives crushed out of them by a mob surging in late.”

Ingham, who admitted he had not read the Hillsborough Report, reportedly refused to apologise for the discredited opinion about "a mob surging in late".

Referring to the content of the 1996 letter, he said: “That seems reasonable to me, I most certainly do [think that] if there is any respect for the 96 who died. I think people should be concerned about those who died.”

In 2012, before the Hillsborough Report was published, Ingham had reportedly claimed that the day after the disaster Thatcher was briefed by senior police officers that "a tanked-up mob" were responsible for the deaths of the 96.

In black and white: The Hillsborough Report exposed the lie that Liverpool fans were responsible - but Sir Bernard Ingham (centre, head bowed, with then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the ground) hasn't read it (Photo: Getty)

The Echo reports that the Hillsborough Family Support Group chair Margaret Aspinall responded to Ingham's refusal to apologise by saying: “Just like the woman, he is not for turning. We know the truth and deep down he knows the truth, he just can’t face it. We have proved that he’s wrong.”